


Black Dog

by RZZMG



Series: Hermione x Draco stories [44]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Animagus, Blood Magic, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Maledictus, Manipulation, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 16:42:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19931218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG
Summary: A Grim is stalking Grimmauld Place... A Black family curse also becomes Draco's greatest gift, for it allows him access to the Order and to the girl he loves. But will Hermione recognise him, in either human or his alternate animal form, and will she understand what it is he's been trying to convey to her all this time?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my 2017 Hawthorn & Vine "If The Prompt Fits" Fest entry (dramione . org) entry. The fest is long over and reveals are out, but I'm revising the story entirely for this revision 2.0 release.
> 
> My prompt for the fest was: "Draco's under a curse that turns his hair black" and self-prompts of "Grimmauld Place", "Grim", and "Oh, how I've missed you, Granger."
> 
> Thank you to the Mods at H&V for running this wonderful fest!
> 
> DISCLAIMER:"Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> TIMELINE: Canon compliant up to the end of 5th year (after Dept. of Mysteries battle). A/U after that.

There was a Grim stalking Grimmauld Place.

Or rather, a very large, shaggy black dog had parked its bum outside on the walk in front of the Black ancestral family home. Whether or not it was a magical beast was yet unknown, but Hermione saw too much intelligence in the dog's gaze to rule an Animagus out.

As she peeked through the front living room curtains to look at it again, she idly wondered if Sirius Black hadn't come back from the dead somehow. The man had been known to perform quite complex feats of magic from time to time—tricks he'd claimed Lily Evans had taught him.

"Still there?" Harry asked, creeping up behind her and giving her a small fright. He stood behind, looking over her shoulder to the street below.

"Mmm," she replied with a nod. "It looks just like him, doesn't it? Sirius, I mean."

Harry said nothing, and Hermione understood his silence. The loss of his godfather was a deep and abiding pain that lingered on the edges of his heart, taking slices out of his soul.

"Sorry," she offered. "That was thoughtless of me."

Harry's hand on her shoulder was an unspoken acceptance of her apology. "It does, though, doesn't it?" he asked, leaning closer to the glass. "I wonder who it is."

"Assuming it's not just a dog," she reminded them both, although she was beginning to suspect they both knew better.

"Aren't you?" he asked her, already knowing the answer.

Ron came in before she could reply, and Harry hastily removed his hand from Hermione's shoulder, jerking away from her as if burned.

It took effort not to roll her eyes and censure her best friend for persisting on the assumption that Ron and she would ever be an item. She knew Harry was hoping things would work in that direction, if only to give himself hope regarding Ginny, but the truth was she and Ron…that ship had sailed the morning of Fleur and Bill's wedding, when Ron had hastily penned Lavender Brown an invitation after learning Viktor Krum had RSVP'd that he'd be in attendance. That petty move had been the last straw as far as Hermione had been concerned, and she'd made it abundantly clear that same evening to Ron that they were going to remain friends and _only_ friends.

Unfortunately, Harry hadn't yet accepted that little fact, and he still actively encouraged Ron's interest in her, despite Hermione's protestations.

She grit her teeth this time, telling herself that she'd have a little chat with Harry later that evening. For now, she was more curious as to the animal sitting outside the house, staring up at her as if he could actually see her through the Fidelius Charm.

"That dog still out there?" Ron asked, coming up alongside her and looking out on the street. He moved the Victorian lace draping aside. "Persistent bugger. I bet it's an Animagus."

Hermione yielded her hopes for the mundane with a heavy sigh. "The evidence certainly seems stacked in that direction."

"Should we find out?" Harry asked.

Ever since Dumbledore had fallen, a fire for revenge had been lit under her best friend, and he seemed more reckless than usual. At that moment, he seemed to _want_ a confrontation.

Surprisingly, it was Ron who was the voice of reason. "Supposed to rain this afternoon, yeah?" He glanced up at the grey, cloudy sky far above. "Let 'im get wet. That ought to send him home with his tail tucked between his legs." He turned away without another thought, throwing himself down on one of the two settees in the room and rearranging the wizarding chess pieces on a board that sat on the coffee table in between. "Rematch, Harry?"

"Yeah, okay," Harry conceded, clearly disappointed that he wasn't going to get to scrap anytime soon. He went and joined Ron, sitting across from him on the other sofa and turning his mind towards a different sort of violence, one where he controlled the outcome through wit rather than fists.

Frankly, Hermione was relieved to have dodged that bullet. Harry's temper had been worse since the Death Eaters had attacked them at the wedding and forced them into hiding sooner than expected, and her input, which always urged temperance and logic, only seemed to irritate him further. Ron, however, had a way of taming their friend's volatile inner beast. It was, as Ginny had often pointed out to her, a 'bloke thing'.

Whatever the reason, it allowed her to turn back to the problem before them, to examine the puzzle of the black dog in her mind and find all possible explanations as to who it was and how they had found out about Grimmauld Place, and yet could not see the door. He or she clearly knew the place existed, but they weren't a Secret-Keeper, which meant they weren't part of the Order.

It had to be a relation of the Black family or one of their friends, and seeing as how all of _them_ were all on the dark side of things…

"Who are you?" she mouthed to the dog.

He continued to stare up at the house as the rain started to fall, drenching his dark fur, and she could swear he was looking right at her the whole time.


	2. Chapter 2

That night, Hermione dreamed of the past...

_It had been early January in her sixth year, and she'd agreed to meet up with Malfoy in secret to discuss the rather awkward life-altering event that had occurred between them just before the Christmas break—specifically, when they'd gotten together for their usual Wednesday night tutoring assignment, but instead of practising spells, they'd ended up working out their lips. As in, snogging._

_She checked her watch and then sighed in irritation. He was late._

_Again._

_"Why are you never on time?" she'd asked him as he'd finally breezed into the Room of Requirement with his hands in his expensive trouser pockets and his platinum blond hair slightly mussed, as if he'd been running._

_Alright, yes, she'd sounded a bit exasperated and on edge that night, but in her defense, she'd had two full weeks to mull over that show-down in her head, to work over the scenario so that she would be prepared for any possible come-back he might throw her way. Just by being late, he'd gone and mucked up the entire anticipated scene, throwing her off._

_Again._

_Rather than snarling back a response, he'd simply stopped and given her the once over. He'd noted her chaotic hair—a result of her running to get there on time as well, and the lip gloss she'd carefully applied—the cause of her lateness, and had predictably smirked at the messy, girly picture she'd made._

_"Seems I wasn't the only one rushing to beat the clock," he'd pointed out. "Your lips look edible enough to eat, by the way."_

_Well, at least her efforts had been appreciated._

_When he'd moved in and kissed her, without giving her the fight she'd been expecting, none of what came before—the fight she'd been anticipating, and the rejection she'd been prepared to accept and endure—seemed to matter a blot._

_"Even better than last time," she'd complimented him when they'd finally come up for air. "Um, you didn't practise on anyone else over the break, did you?"_

_He'd laughed at her then._ _"Oh, how I missed you, Granger."_

_He'd proceeded to prove it to her for the next hour, dizzying her with his expert kisses._

_Things had forever changed between them after that._

Blinking through the haze of sleep to full wakefulness, she realized with some disappointment that she'd been dreaming of Malfoy again. She'd been doing so almost relentlessly over the last week, since the black dog had appeared outside Grimmauld Place, where she was still stationed. What was it about that dog that triggered such memories?

"I miss you," she whispered to the ceiling, thinking of Draco and valiantly fighting the tears that once more attempted to put in an appearance. "It's stupid, I know. You were rotten and spoilt and a liar. What we did was all so confusing and insane too, but...it was also lovely." A tear slipped down the side of her face, wetting her hairline, and she brushed it away, but more followed it. "And I miss those moments. I miss you and your snarky mouth, and your awful temper, and the gentle way you'd touch my face when... I miss your kiss."

Down the hallway, she could hear someone, Ron or Harry, shutting the bathroom door.

She turned onto her side, closed her eyes, continued to reach out with her magic hoping, praying to feel his aura somewhere in the universe. There was nothing where he'd once been though, only that same blank wall before her that she'd been encountering since he'd disappeared the night of Dumbledore's death.

"Where are you? Where did you go?"

No answer was forthcoming, no ripple of energy reached back to touched hers.

The tears came faster now.

"I was so angry with you that last night, remember?"

_His head had snapped to the side as her palm had connected with his cheek. She'd hit him so hard the flesh of her fingers had stung._ _"How could you even consider killing Dumbledore, especially for that...that deranged lunatic? It's evil, Draco. Evil!"_

Squeezing her eyes tightly, she reached again, trying to push through that wall in her mind, using all her mental effort. "I said so many things to you, such horrid things."

_"You do this, Draco, and I'll never forgive you. Do you hear me?"_

_"We'll be through, forever!"_

The barrier remained, immovable, refusing to cave to her smashing her fists against it.

_"Coward! You don't deserve my love. I'm taking it all back!"_

She let go, drifting away from the wall, knowing it as hopeless an effort now as it had been for the past several months. Openly sobbing now, she clasped her pillow tightly to her chest and muffled her screams into it.

It took a long while for her grief to pass over her, but when the tide of frustration and loss had finally been spent, she lay quietly once more in bed, staring up at the blank, white ceiling in what had once been a guest bedroom. Her sigh of surrender was soft, broken. "I'd give anything to undo that night," she whispered into the black night. "But I can't, can I? It's too late."

With sadness in her heart, she finally admitted what she'd known for months now.

Draco was dead.

**~.~.~.~.~**

Every few days, the dog would show up out front of the house at Grimmauld. It would sit across the street and stare up at it, as if silently calling to its occupants to come out for a meet-and-greet. After a few hours, it would saunter off back down the street and around the corner, disappearing into the shadows.

One afternoon, Hermione looked out and noticed the dog had something between its teeth, some sort of scarf. She recognized the colours.

"Gryffindor colours," Harry pointed out the obvious. "What if he's one of us?"

Hermione put a restraining hand on his arm. "Or it could be stolen from a Gryffindor student. They're not hard to come by, are they?"

Ron nodded. "Could have been purchased in advance to trick us into trusting him. That's what I'd do if I wanted to win someone over: make them think you're rooting for the same team."

She glanced up at her friend with approval. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Ron's general laziness and slovenliness was only one facet of his personality. Behind those mellow, blue eyes there lurked a rather brilliant tactician. That was most obvious when he was playing chess, but when he was busy manipulating others with a mischievous smile or a casual comment that made him appear to be disinterested in the proceedings, he could disarm even the most cunning of Slytherins. Over the years, she'd observed him slyly manoeuver around their teachers—even Professor Snape once or twice—to know there was a little bit of a snake in him, too, much like the twins.

Turning back to the dog, she noted that there was something off with the scarf.

"Ron, can you get me my beaded bag, please?"

Her friend ran off to the room she'd taken as her own upstairs, returning a few minutes later with her charmed purse. Rifling around in it, she quickly found what she'd been searching for: a pair of Omnioculars. Holding them up, she zeroed in on the scarf.

"There's blood on that bit of gold near the end," she told her friends, quite shocked by the sheer amount. "It looks like… It's quite a lot."

Harry took the magical binoculars from her and took a peek. He sucked in a breath when he saw what she'd meant, and then passed them off to Ron to take a look as well.

"Bloody hell," Ron swore. "It's like it was dipped in the stuff. D'ya suppose the dog did it? Maybe that's how he got the scarf, by attacking someone."

Hermione looked once more into the dog's face and some instinct told her that the animal hadn't been responsible for the blood that practically dyed one end of the scarf in its mouth. It seemed more like a courier package than a warning to her.

"I can find out," she offered. "Lend me the Invisibility Cloak."

As expected, her best friends put up an argument. She waited them out, and then proceeded to remind them that Harry was too important and Ron not stealthy enough, and that of the three of them, she was the one who could Disapparate best, having had the most practise.

In the end, she won out. Cloak in hand, she went through the kitchen to the back door. There, she donned the magical shawl and headed out. The back exit took her through an alley between buildings. She walked the stretch to the end, where it came out on a street. Rounding the corner, she headed towards the dog on feet muffled by a spell, and cast a _Hominem Revelio_ at the edge of the building. Every person in a one block radius lit up to her witch's sight and she noted there were no people hidden under Disillusionment Charms anywhere nearby.

Moving forward, carefully glancing around, she made sure her target had no visual or auditory warning of her approach.

She'd forgotten that a dog's sense of smell was quite keen…and that she was wearing perfume. The Grim's head swung towards her when she was less than ten feet away, finding her by scent alone. She stopped on a sickle and held her breath, the Cloak in one hand and her wand in the other. A Stupefy spell waited, poised and ready to fire, upon the tip of her tongue.

Slowly, the dog lowered its head and dropped the scarf onto the pavement. It whined at her as it did so, conveying a message her human sensibilities could not translate, but which made the universal sound for distress. It backed up slowly, keeping its eyes on her, and for the first time she could actually see the colour of the animal's gaze: grey and smooth, like one of those skipping stones that gathered along the shores of the Black Lake in Scotland. It was strange, really, but it almost seemed to her as if the dog could see right through her disguise and was looking into the heart of her even then, and oddly, something about him was familiar. Some gut instinct told her she knew this animal already…

Before she could utter a binding spell to capture the dog, it turned and dashed off into the bushes lining the street, running through the small green on the other side and startling the Muggles as it streaked by, a blur of black fur.

Quickly, Hermione summoned the scarf under the Cloak and then headed back into the alley behind Number Twelve, using the rear entrance to get back inside.

An examination of the scarf minutes later determined it had belonged to Dean Thomas. His name had been written in Sharpie ink on the scarf's tag by his Muggle mother.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione spent several days after that debating with Harry and Ron regarding contacting the Order to find out Dean's status, and the status of everyone else after the attack at Bill and Fleur's wedding feast.

Ron advocated for finding out what had happened to their friends and his family, his concern for his loved ones making him edgy.

Harry wanted to maintain silence and go it alone, as they'd planned all along.

In the end, it fell to Hermione to break the tie.

She reasoned that as a group, the Order had resources that she and her two best friends lacked: a load of physical manpower to commit to the horcrux search, years of personal experience fighting a resistance, a senior line of defence that had perfected healing charms and combative hexes and memory spells, and the unique knowledge stored in every person's brain in the Order, which could offer new perspectives on the hunt.

Yes, involving the others would certainly endanger them and increase the risk of their plan reaching Voldemort's ear, but it would also boost their odds of actually _finding_ the horcruxes, as they could cover more ground in the same period of time. Also, she figured, Voldemort would most likely know by now that they were after his horcruxes, since he'd assuredly felt Dumbledore's destruction of the Gaunt family ring the summer before last.

"The Dark Lord may be an egotistical maniac, but he's no fool, Harry," she told him, seeing the stubborn set of his jaw beginning to soften under the onslaught of her common sense. "He's surely figured out by now that the Headmaster set you on the path to finishing what he'd started with the ring. He'll know we're after the pieces of his soul."

"In that case, he'll set traps for them," Harry argued.

"He'll have done that anyway, mate," Ron replied, picking casually at his nails with a dinner knife. "We'll just tell the others to expect it, too. It's the Sicilian Defence. Gives us the advantage of the board. Easier to check the King that way."

In the end, Harry caved.

The next day, the Order arrived at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place to discuss their battle plan.

As expected, they also had to endure a rather loud and somewhat merciless dressing-down by Molly for their sneaking off and sending no word as to their circumstances. There was plenty of angry accusations and righteous chastisement, then there were just as many tears and apologies, and finally Mrs. Weasley went down into the kitchen to cook them dinner, and everything was forgiven.

It had been six weeks since then, and the Order had done exactly what Hermione had expected: they'd barged right into the secure, strategically-placed Grimmauld and set it up as a base of operations and a safe house for its activities.

During that time, Hermione had been frequently shifted around at Kingsley's, Remus', and Molly and Arthur Weasley's dictates, occasionally engaging in intense guerilla-styled fighting with Death Eaters and Snatchers to keep them occupied and off the hunt for Harry, who was dedicated to tracking down horcruxes.

Her talents, however, were superfluous on the field of battle next to the likes of Tonks, Bill, Viktor, and Fleur, and so had just yesterday been deemed by those in charge to better serve the cause of countering the new Ministry's propaganda machine instead. In short, it had become her job to concoct new and inventive ways of rallying ordinary wizarding citizens into resisting Voldemort's dark call and in boosting the morale of her fellow Order members. Consequently, she was permanently assigned to Grimmauld Place, to serve as both its keeper and to make use of its tactical location for her duties.

Reading up now on the history of war propaganda and its skillful manipulation of the masses was giving Hermione a headache, though. So, when she'd re-read the same paragraph three times in a row, she decided a break was in order.

Standing, she stretched and scratched her tummy. Was it time for lunch yet?

The clock on the wall read three in the afternoon. "Way past lunch," she groused and kicked aside the lap blanket she'd been cuddling under all morning to keep warm in the drafty, old house, and headed for the kitchen.

As she passed the front window in the Drawing Room, though, movement outside caught her eye and she turned automatically to follow it. There, sitting patiently on the pavement before the house was the Grim again.

It had returned.

It had something else in its mouth, too.

A quick summons of her Omnioculars and a peek through them showed her a necklace made of blue glass…with a Butterbeer cork for a pendant. Hermione recognised it in an instant as belonging to Luna, having seen it in the past hanging from her friend's neck. Had something happened to Luna? Hermione hadn't seen her friend since the wedding...

She considered her options for getting the necklace away from the dog.

Currently, she was the only one in the house. Molly and Arthur had left that morning for Shell Cottage to join up with Ron, Bill, and Fleur. Tonks had gone to stay at her mother's place. Fred and George had closed up their shop in the Alley and were staying with Lee Jordan and Seamus Finnigan in a cottage in the South Downs. Remus and Harry, along with his Invisibility Cloak, had gone with Angelina to London to recover Slytherin's locket from Dolores Umbridge while Polyjuiced as Ministry employees.

Should she dare go outside on her own to confront the animal? What if it was all an elaborate trap, as Ron has postulated previously?

She'd learned soon after contacting the Order two months earlier that Dean had been captured by the enemy and taken to Malfoy Manor as a prisoner. The scarf had been her clue that her fellow Gryffindor was in serious trouble, sitting right under the feet of the Dark Lord, himself. Either the dog had tipped her off so she and the Order could attempt a rescue of Dean, or the gift of Dean's scarf had merely been a ruse to gain an Order member's trust so Grimmauld Place's Fidelius Charm could be breached.

She still wasn't sure which was true.

If she went outside now and it was a trap meant to lure her out, she'd be falling right into the enemy's hands. She'd be putting the entire Order at risk. Her capture would be devastating to their side, because she was a Secret-Keeper not just for Grimmauld, but for many of the Order's safe houses. Not to mention, she could be used to force Harry out into the open, if he was foolish enough to attempt a rescue or prisoner exchange.

If she didn't go outside, however, the dog might not believe anyone was still here and stop coming, and any intel it might be attempting to communicate could be lost. The dog could be a traitor in the Death Eater ranks, or it could belong to someone who was, but who was too afraid to come into the light themselves.

Was it worth the risk to find out?

As she stared down into the dog's upraised face, she couldn't help feel that tingle of familiarity pass through her once again. "Animagus," she whispered, suddenly as sure of that fact as she was her own name.

But who could it be? No one she knew aside from Sirius had ever been a big, black dog.

Could it be Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances more than a decade ago? The tapestry did not indicate a death date for him, much the same as it didn't for Draco, which was an oddity.

Whoever it was, they were definitely male. That much was obvious by certain...physical markers.

She hurried over to the family tapestry and traced its various branches, but she could find no living Black male relatives in direct lineage, only females. Yes, there were plenty of offshoots who'd married into the family and produced children, such as Harry, Ron, even Neville, but no males with the _Black_ last name. Of the females, only the three Black sisters—Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa—still lived, and of them, only Narcissa had produced a male heir off her direct lineage, despite the fact he had the last name of 'Malfoy'.

But Draco wasn't an Animagus.

Was he?

Surely he'd have mentioned it to her, even in passing.

Maybe there was a simpler explanation that she was overlooking, one that made more sense: what if it wasn't someone related to the family at all, but someone who had been to the Black family residence at least once in their life, before Walburga had died? There could be dozens of people still walking around who'd visited over the last fifty years, and whom would know about the house. Perhaps it was one of them come here to spy for the Death Eaters.

She returned to the front window to look out. The dog was still patiently sitting there. The Muggles passing by it didn't seem to notice it at all, nor did they seem to pay any attention to the fact that they walked around the space the dog occupied. They were entirely oblivious to its magic.

That cemented it in Hermione's head: the dog was definitely a wizard in disguise. Whether or not he was attempting to help her with warnings about her friends, or setting a trap for her still remained to be seen.

Perhaps it was time to find out.

A dozen spells had been layered over her to prevent sight, sound, or scent giving her away as she crept out the back door of the house and around it to the main street once more. Once there, she took the added precaution of using the last of the Polyjuice she'd brewed for Harry, Remus, and Angelina and dosed herself. Her features shifted and she shuddered at the feeling.

Only once she was in her 'borrowed' form did she drop all shielding spells and move forward, heading across the narrow street towards the green. Keeping the dog in her peripheral vision, she circled around it, attempting to come up from behind.

Whether it was some sixth doggie sense or something she'd done to give herself away, the dog whirled around, as if he'd known someone was sneaking up on him. Hermione froze in place.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered to it, slowly going to one knee, keeping her wand in hand and tightly to her side, out of view of the Muggles passing by. She held her other hand out to the dog. "Whoever you are, I know you're trying to tell me something important. I'm listening."

The dog dropped to its haunches and stared at her, and once more, that weird feeling of almost-recognition passed through her.

"I know you, don't I?"

The dog whined once.

"You're warning me, aren't you? That's why you're here. Dean's scarf, and now this… Luna's necklace, right?"

Slowly, the dog dropped its head, keeping its eyes on her. It opened its maw and dropped the necklace onto the ground. It pawed at the thing, as if insisting she pick it up.

"Why don't you come in? We can talk‒"

In a blink, the dog sat up and ran off down the street, zooming around the corner before she could catch him. As there were too many Muggles around, using magic to ensnare him was out of the question, so she let him go with a sense of disappointment dropping into her gut.

At least he'd left the necklace for her. Gathering it up with a carefully shielded handkerchief spelled against dark curses, she headed back for the house. Once inside, she set the necklace on the table and carefully examined it. It was definitely Luna's, and there was blood soaked into the cork. Fire-calling Shell Cottage, she requested Bill and Arthur come back to Grimmauld to also give the necklace a once over, and then set about calling all the other safe houses, asking her fellow members what they might know of Luna's current whereabouts. No one seemed to know where she was, and no one had seen her in days.

Even as a chord of dread moved through the ranks at the possibility of the gentle, blonde witch having been kidnapped or killed, Remus, Harry, and Angelina arrived safely back at Grimmauld, Slytherin's locket in hand and with news that Dolores Umbridge had been killed during their escape from the Ministry, Kissed by one of her frenzied pet Dementors during the fighting.

Even as the group was cheered by Harry's safe return and his success, Hermione stared out the front window onto the street below, recalling every detail of the encounter she'd had that day with the dog. She ran over it in her mind again and again, and the more she remembered, the more convinced she was that the animal was an Animagus in disguise, that he was someone residing within the camp of Death Eaters at a level where he'd have access to prisoners of war, and that clearly, he wasn't their enemy.

Which made him what, exactly? A traitor to his cause? An informant for the Order?

"My ally," she decided.


End file.
